Today’s Secret Place devotion directed me to 1 Kings 19, a chapter I always
like to read. I first encountered this narrative about Elijah in May of 1966,
in fact, on the Sunday following May 9. How do I know this?
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| Not all Mondays are bad. |
The counselor who helped me pray to
receive Christ gave me a booklet which included pages to take sermon notes. The
first sermon I heard after my conversion was titled “A Prophet of God under the
Juniper Tree,” preached by Rev. Bruce Allen, the young, red-haired pastor of
the First Baptist Church of Pascack Valley in Washington Township, New Jersey.
Being the nostalgic pack rat I am, I imagine that little booklet with the notes is still in a box in
my attic.
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| Super 8 has red Gideons Bibles. |
In chapter 18 Elijah experiences a huge spiritual victory, validating both Elijah as a
prophet and God himself as God alone. However, chapter 19 starts with a death
threat from the infamous Jezebel, and Elijah, terror-stricken, heads for the
hills.
At a safe distance from Jezebel,
Elijah experiences restorative sleep and is awakened twice to eat meals
prepared by an angel. What was in that second meal? It powered him to travel
forty days and forty nights to God’s mountain. Talk about your superfood!
In a cave, Elijah gets to tell God
his complaint, which turns out to be a misconception. “I have
been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites
have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to
death with the sword. I am the
only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” (verse
10)
God gives a three-fold demo of brute
strength and finally speaks in “a still small voice” (KJV) or “a gentle
whisper.” (NIV) Elijah responds only to the whisper and comes to the mouth of
the cave. God renews Elijah’s mission and tells him where to find an assistant.
Then God corrects the prophet’s misconception. “Yet I reserve seven thousand in
Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not
kissed him.” (verse 18)
Instead of a harsh tongue-lashing
for his wrong thinking and lack of faith, God gives Elijah a gentle
misconception correction. “You’re not alone, buddy. You may feel alone, but I have thousands more
faithful non-idol-worshiping followers. But why don’t you take Elisha with you
for moral support?”
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| Who is wielding the fly swatter? |
Why do so many of
us feel God is waiting to squash us like bugs? Have we experienced too much
squashed-bug corrections from parents, teachers, spouses, and other authority
figures? And here’s a scary question:
Because of my own squashed-bug experiences, am I prone to squash others
like bugs when I’m in the position to correct? Have I made my sons and my
students feel like squashed bugs?
I know the Gospels
well enough to know Jesus often used a fly swatter on the Pharisees, but it
seems he was much gentler with his friends and followers. Even Peter, after denying
three times that he knew the Lord, received only a look. (Luke 22:61)
In his Gospel, Matthew
uses this quote from Isaiah to refer to Jesus: “A bruised reed he will not
break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out…” (Matthew 12:20,
Isaiah 42:3) I want to wrap myself in the tender poetry of these images.
And I want to
remember this blog post after school starts.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is
quoted from the New International Version.
Great devotion. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!
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